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Monday, March 29, 2010

THE MEDITERRANEAN WRITERS GROUP

SPRING WRITERS’ RETREAT

KAKOPETRIA,CYPRUS, 30 April-2 May 2010

The Mediterranean Writers Group is hosting a writers’ retreat at the Makris Hotel in Kakopetria, Cyprus, in the Troodos mountain region on the Klarios River, for the weekend of 30 April – 2 May 2010 with the aim of allowing serious writers of fiction, poetry, and other forms of creative writing the opportunity to have the time and space to focus on their craft, share their work with other serious writers, and to soak up the natural environment of the region. Our theme will be “Beginnings.”

This 3-day mini-retreat combines creative writing workshops with readings, a publishing practicum, book swaps, and structured activities like nature walks and guided conversations related to their work. Of course, the retreat is also about having time away from the pressures of daily life to write in peace and solitude. Specialists in fiction, poetry, and drama will be on site to run workshops, offer advice, and provide guidance. The retreat is open to writers of all levels, and costs €110,00 total.

6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Creative Writing Workshop (fiction & poetry). Beginnings. Strategies for warming up, getting the writing flowing, and for sustaining starts. The focus will be on pre-writing to write, how to set the stage for a poem or short story before the writing begins. Dinner afterwards at local taverna.

10 p.m. Writing Time. This evening is set aside for participants to complete short, assigned exercises in fiction & poetry in the solitude of the mountain night.

SATURDAY : 1 MAY 2010

9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Creative Writing Workshop (fiction). This workshop allows fiction writers the opportunity to try out new ways of approaching their craft, including exercises in tactile response to objects, sense-focus, and interaction with other media (photography, film, visual arts). Conducted by Maria Ioannou.

11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Book Swap. Participants will introduce & exchange books with each other, free of charge, as a means to both expanding their libraries and sharing what they have learned. Poetry, fiction, literary biography, and critical books all welcome.

3 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Creative Writing Workshop (fiction & poetry). Focus on beginning: how to find narrator, character, and speaker voices. This workshop will allow poets & fiction writers a chance to try out new ways of approaching their beginnings. Thematic in-course writing, prose poetry, narrative, lyric, and longer forms of poetry all will be part of the practice work we do.

8 p.m. Writing Time. The evening is set aside for undisturbed quiet time writing, with only one rule: that no participant contact another during this period, and that mobile phones remain switched off. Each writer will be given a individually tailored exercise to work on over the evening, for presentation the next afternoon.

SUNDAY : 2 MAY 2010

10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Fresh Start Workshop. This workshop throws writers into unfamiliar territory, asking them to write on topics and in forms / modes they have never written in before. Fictional autobiography, non-fiction poetry, and a range of other cross-forms will be set up as experiments to follow.

12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Publishing Practicum. This brings writers and editors with experience publishing their work together to share practical advice on how to get creative work published in Cyprus and the Mediterranean more broadly. Conducted by Christos Rodoullas Tsiailis.

1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. Lunch at local taverna

3 p.m. - 5 p.m. Guided Conversation/ Response Workshop. This period is reserved for free and open discussion of the writing participants have done during the previous two days, guided by a set of topics to help the writers evaluate their own and others’ progress.

2-day options (Sat & Sun only) are also available, at €80,00. All payments due upon arrival.

To register by Friday 23 April 2010 contact Dr. Spurgeon Thompson, 1 28th Oktovriou Street, 4680 Agros, Cyprus, email: spurgeonthompson1@yahoo.co.uk, or phone +357, 99804970. Late registrations accepted, but will not guarantee accommodation at the Makris Hotel, given the 1st of May holiday.